Blake Young, CEO for the Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services, provided an overview of the organization as well as the operations. We are the only food bank in Sacramento. There are 130 charities that call themselves food banks, but they are not. All of the other food distribution points in Sacramento get their food from us. We do not distribute directly to the community, that is the job of the local "food banks." The secret word is Bank. We source buy, package and deliver to all of the other charities. If they are giving away food, the majority of it comes from us.
They buy the majority of the food directly from the supplies, and move over 40 million pounds of food a year to 315,000 people a month out of the 500,000 qualify for assistance within our county. One out of three people and six out of ten children that live in the county qualify for assistance.
40% of the food we distribute is purchased from farms in California. They cooperatively buy with 41 other food banks in California, the California Association of Food Banks. Cooperatively, they move over 1 billion pounds of food a year. In the stores you might pay $1 a pound for potatoes, we are buying it for $.17 a pound, but they still are buying it, it is not given to them. The majority of the food they distribute is paid for at reduced rates. Then there is the retail program that provides food that is near their expiration dates. They have 180 retail stores they pick up food from on a daily basis. 85% of all the food distributed in the nation is distributed by faith-based organizations and they get their food from food banks.
The Sacramento Food Bank purchases, receives, breaks down the supplies and then takes the online orders from the charities and provides them the food for pickup by the community members. They evaluate the distribution system and set up distribution points where needed through community organizations.
They rely on volunteers to help take bulk foods and divide them up into smaller, user-friendly, portions. The volunteers play a big roll in keeping the operating costs low.
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